White House takes a big step into the cloud with Apps.gov

The White House has introduced Apps.gov, a sort of App Store of government- …

"The Cloud" may not mean what you think it means, but the White House is hitching a ride on this fluffy bandwagon with Apps.gov. The site is essentially a White House-sanctioned App Store of social media services approved for government agencies, made possible largely because of some unique TOS amendments.

Run by the US General Services Administration (GSA), Apps.gov arranges quite a few social media services under categories like Business, Productivity, Social Media, and Cloud IT, with the latter listing services like storage, Web hosting, and virtualization as "coming soon." Almost every commercial and free service that you have (and have not) heard of is here, ranging from Facebook, Scribd, Vimeo, and Google Apps. The site also offers a market-speak crash course in the cloud's advantages of reduced cost, less overhead, going green, and adopting modern technologies and trends more quickly.

Agency representatives can learn about each service and, once logged in, submit a department request or purchase order. The entire process seems deceptively App Store-simple (at least the publicly accessible portion), especially since most of the red tape around adopting such services is summarized in the FAQs. Among the listed answers, the GSA washes its hands of the typical security implications and bureaucratic approval processes by stating:

Our inclusion of these social media tools is not a recommendation or endorsement of specific providers. All agencies must determine whether use of any of these tools is consistent with the agency’s mission, and more importantly, any agency-specific orders or regulations concerning the use of such tools. Questions regarding use of these tools should be referred to the Information System Security Officer of the agency.

In a way, the GSA is treating Apps.gov like high schools now treat Wikipedia: it's OK to use as research springboard, but agencies should consult their respective higher powers before diving into the deep end.

In the FAQs, the GSA also reveals that its Office of Citizen Services led a "coalition of federal agencies" to negotiate with social media services for Apps.gov's existence. Together, they developed amended TOS agreements that fit within the laws designed to restrict which services federal agencies can sign up for. The GSA is careful to reiterate that a service's listing on Apps.gov does not mean it is approved for all agencies and internal security or procedural requirements; it is simply a thumbs-up from a legal standpoint.

In the White House's official announcement for Apps.gov, it positions the site as both a way to save taxpayers money on the government's annual $75 billion IT budget and modernize operations. Admittedly, this is an initial effort to "start small," with the eventual goal of scaling up in size and addressing "various issues related to security, privacy, information management, and procurement to expand our cloud computing service."